470 ANNUAL KEPORT OF NEW. YORK ; 



CHESTNUT. TRUXK. 



Tliey are of the same size with the preceding but are of a glossy 

 black color, with the mouth, shanks, feet and tip of the abdomen 

 pale yellow, and with four large wings which are twice as long as 

 the body, and hyaline but not clear like glass. About the begin- 

 ning of June, during the dampness of the mornings preceding 

 pleasant days, these winged white ants leave their retreats and 

 come abroad, and the air is everywhere filled with countless mil- 

 lions of them. The soldiers resemble the workers, but are 0.25 

 long with enormously large heads twice as long as wide and their 

 opposite sides parallel, with stout jaws half as long as the head 

 and of a blackish chestnut color. 



Decaying stumps and logs lying upon the ground, especially 

 those of pine and other soft wood, are everywhere occupied by 

 these insects. The cavities which they excavate become thronged 

 with myriads of them. Fortunately for us it is only soft damp 

 wood in which they work; hence the dry timbers and furniture 

 of our dwellings are exempt from that havoc which some of these 

 insects occasion in tropical countries. But the posts and stakes 

 of our fences furnish a congenial resort for them, that portion 

 which is under ground being always sufficiently damp to answer 

 their requirements. Posts in particular from which the bark has 

 not been removed, whereby these creatures can remain hid from 

 view whilst they consume the soft sap wood immediately under 

 the bark, are a favorite abode for them. And as the sap wood 

 becomes destroyed they extend their burrows through the more 

 solid heart wood. I have seen a fence four years after it was 

 built, every post of w^hich was reduced to a mere shell by these 

 insects, though externally there was not the slightest indication 

 of the mischief that was going on within. 



AFFECTING THE LEAVES. 



19T. Chestnut tree-hopper, Smilia Castanea, Fitch. (Homoptera. 

 Membracidse.) 



Puncturing the leaves and extracting their juices, a triangular 

 tree-hopper shaped much like a beechnut, of a blackish color, 

 tinged with green more or less when alive, its head and the ante- 

 rior edges of its thorax and all beneath bright yellow, its fore 



